[CHAPTER 2 – "Baiting the Epaulette's Mate": Eaton: Dropship Poseidon April, 3061]
Standing in the medical wing wasn't pleasant. I hated the antiseptic smell, the gray atmosphere, the stink of blood. But I stayed because Sara was there, and the doc needed assistance anyway. She couldn't speak, probably because of the foul smoke she had breathed in while trapped in her cockpit and the doctor quickly had her on a respirator. It wasn't long before the tranquilizers kicked in and she fell into a deep sleep. She'd probably be out for the better part of a day. I pulled out my smokes and lit up, drawing a flurry of cursing from the doctor, who pushed me out of the medical room hastily and slammed the hatch behind him. I grinned and sat down in the corridor and let my mind wander for a few minutes. Every mission was a blur when you looked back on it, but for a moment or two, time moved slowly, as if to compensate or equalize, while I stared blankly at the wall. People stepped over me and I ignored them all, hearing only the beep of my medipack strapped to my thigh. I reached down and turned it off. They call it battle shock, as you come down off the adrenaline, stimulants, and steroids that your medipack injects into you as you fight. Not all mechwarriors wore them, but I was hooked on the slight edge they gave. The drawback was that it was obviously borderline addictive, and coming down after combat was always disorienting. Finally my head cleared and I forced myself up and about. I made my way to the washroom and looked in the mirror. Great Ghost Regiment. I looked like hell. Blood on my hands and arms, blood on my neck, blood on my cooling vest – HER blood - all mixed with a fine layer of dust and sweat. I looked around for some soap, then gave up and made my way to my quarters to clean up there. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had left my duffel and supplies down in the mech bay.
I made my way down to the bay and navigated the chaos as I searched for my duffel. Union dropships have massive mech bays with plenty of room, but this one was as crowded as the streets of Luthien during the New Year celebration. The heavy equipment hauling in mechs and mech pieces littered the floor, the dozen-some techs and equipment operators scurrying about like worker bees. I noticed that all the mechs were in their gantries, sans Sara's Hawk, which was nowhere to be seen. The APCs were parked in the vehicle bays and… what the hell? Dreadnaught's customized fighter was parked at the main entry hatch, and the burly fighterjock was refueling it and had a pile of munitions nearby for rearming. How the hell had he landed it and gotten it up the ramp? That was impossible with terrain like this. The reddish-purple glint off the armor confirmed though, that it was indeed here. How he had landed was a mystery. I cast my eyes about looking for Alicia's Lucifer and there was no sign of it or her, but I did spot my duffel.
Making my way amidst the rat-maze of components, I reached my duffel and shouldered it. Giving my mech a once-over on the way back, I was satisfied it was secured properly and looked over the rest of my lance. Cadence's Raven was clean and unscathed, as was Solaria's Griffin. Zanshin's Hatchetman was showing heavy damage and had yet to be looked at. I called a tech over, who reluctantly disconnected his music-headset to hear me.
"When do you guys plan to work on the Hatchetman?" I asked.
"Should be done in a coupla hours there chico. Jes wait a little. My brother and I got a lots to pull in yet. You locogatos really scattered pieces all over tha place, man." I checked his coveralls for a tag and saw E. Zapata and recalled that the Bravo tech team was Paco and Enrique Zapata.
"Alright. I'll just let you do your thing, Enrique. What's our salvage window? We dusting off soon?" I offered a cigarette which he accepted readily with a grin and lit up another myself.
"Nah, it's gonna be at least three hours. Your job is done here man, we got this part of the mission covered. You better get your officin' butt up to the debriefing room soon man or they're gonna demote you and give me your job." Scrap. Enrique laughed at the good shock reaction he got out of me and I nodded back. Well, I'll use Sara as my excuse for tardiness for the debriefing.
I made my way into the sitrep room, drawing the glances of everyone present. Just my luck to happen upon a lull in conversation…The Colonel took one look at me and spoke right up.
"You get hit, Leftenant?" he asked as I realized I still hadn't cleaned up. Story of my life.
"No sir, that's Sara's blood." His eyes widened. "She's in medical right now. It's not serious." The Colonel breathed a sigh of relief and I caught a sly grin, quickly covered by a hand, out of Solaria in the corner. She, Zanshin, and Cadence were sitting in the corner and I made my way to the empty seat nearest them. I shot her a steely stare but the little punk was avoiding eye contact and trying not to laugh.
"Just to recap for you a bit Leftenant, we successfully extracted the royals and lost only one mech in the process, Sara's. Good news is that we have a lot of salvage. Peregine is in the air now watching for inbounds and we plan to move out in 2.5 hours. A total of 9 enemy mechs went down, with only the Warhammer escaping."
The colonel and the others continued reporting the damages and salvages, but that sort of thing never really interests me. Then the discussion thankfully turned to the next phase, relocation to the backwoods of the planet and hiding from the loyalists, who had still battalion strength or better within operational range. Everyone in the room was pretty confident. These were green troops at best, if trained at all. Their gunnery accuracy was horrendous, they had no grasp of tactics, and they were scattered and unfocused. Right now, we had the advantage.
"You all have time to do as you will until we set down again. Then I want you and your team out on patrol." The Colonel gestured to the recon element leader, K. Shosunuki, who gave a seated bow and said nothing. I hoped he knew what he was doing. I was glad the Colonel didn't try to assign Cadence's Raven to recon. I would have discouraged the idea since mechs leave pretty unmistakable tracks and even a small one such as a Raven can be easily followed.
"The rest of you are to stay on standby for immediate deployment. Things could get hot at any time. But for now, dismissed." We rose and made our way out. I circled up my team.
"Get yourself cleaned up and then meet me in the officer's lounge in fifteen minutes." They all nodded and quickly dispersed. I took the opportunity to finally head to my quarters and change out of my piloting gear. I replaced my bloodied cooling vest and shorts with my typical khaki fatigues, opting to leave my form-fitted flak-vest on underneath. Lightweight sneakers came off and I put on my combat boots and tactical jacket, and I decided to leave my medipak on. My instructors at the academy always told me to dress less combative and more dignified, as becoming an officer, but habit is habit. I finally scrubbed up and made my way to the officer's lounge, finding the three of them seated at the corner table.
"What are we doing sir?" asked Zanshin as I walked into the lounge and motioned to wait as I approached the bar and got the bartender's attention. A few selections later I plopped down a wad of C-bills and made my way back to the table. The lounge was seriously decked out for a Union-class dropship. Nearly Overlord-class in its size and accommodations. A gaming area, a kitchen, a bar, good atmosphere, the speakers playing music that was probably playing on Solaris VII right now, and a gruff bartender who knew how to mix the music and the alcohol. It smelled of cigarette smoke and barbeque. Just the way I liked it.
"Well, I said drinks are on me and I meant it." They all grinned and got comfortable. Zanshin propped his feet up on a nearby chair, Cadence relaxing and kicking his chair back on to two legs, and Solaria brightened.
"All right! I was afraid we were going to have to sit through another debriefing… You know, sir, before you showed up they were talking a lot about you in there." She said, in between glances to the bar. I raised an eyebrow and looked her in the eyes.
"Is that so. What did they say?" She looked back and forth at Cadence and Zanshin happily.
"They really thought we did a good job. They were really shocked I think. I almost think they expected one or more of us to draw the ace on that one." Zanshin nodded and alternated glances between her and I.
"They were really impressed with our hammer play on that incoming lance," said the giant "They asked twice if you came up with that. Huntress seemed really pleased. They awarded Cadence two assists for that." Solaria, who seemed to be all excitement, broke in again.
"Yeah, and the locust was a kill for me and an assist for you, the Wolfhound the other way around, and they scored you a kill for the Atlas with an assist for Zanshin." Zanshin broke back in.
"But of course, the decapitation was all mine." He guffawed and we all laughed remembering the Uziel pilot backpedaling. Zanshin and Cadence were standing up reenacting the event in slow-motion as Solaria and I laughed uncontrollably when the bartender walked over with a tray of drinks and bottles and many plates of appetizers. I'm not sure what kind of meat it was, but it was spicy, very salty, and delicious. We each poured a drink and raised our glasses.
"Here's to Bravo, and to completing our first mission."
"and to dead loyalists," chimed in Cadence.
"and to rolling in piles of C-bills," smirked Zanshin. We all laughed and downed our drinks and I nearly coughed mine up. What was this stuff? Myomer degreaser? Cadence did start coughing, and Zanshin looked like he was trying hard not to. Solaria was the only one unaffected it seemed. I quickly poured myself a glass of ale to wash it down and lit up.
Time passes fast when you're having fun and we traded insights and stories back and forth as we picked the tray clean of food and drinks. At first we mostly just let the dung fly as we told stories from our rebellious academy and teen days. Cadence's stories usually were over our heads, some technical pranks he pulled, things he hardwired into people's mechs. Actually it sounded like borderline sabotage but he had us rolling in no time. Zanshin, although less amusing, commanded our attention by sheer charisma. As the alcohol got us talking a little more he recounted the year he had spent training in a shaolin temple in the Draconis Combine. He had studied martial arts his whole life and always had excelled at fighting. Champion of his prefecture on more than one occasion, he told the stories of his greatest fights and even told the ones he lost, and how one person who had beaten him had later become his best friend.
Solaria laughed less and less as the evening wore on, and drank more and more. She didn't have much to say about her life before she attended the academy and I could only guess why. She spent much of her youth in gangs and probably was trying to forget some bitter memories. She was the youngest of us, although Cadence was only a year older, and also the youngest of her siblings as well. She was hitting that bottle of liquor pretty hard and beginning to get a glazed look in her eyes. She reached for the bottle again and I pulled it back. She pouted a little but nodded and we turned our eyes to Zanshin and Cadence, who were busy discussing the Ryoken, a clan omnimech. It was a medium mech with a good arsenal of lasers and considered to be a workhorse.
It was at that time that Alpha lance entered, minus the colonel, and of course Sara, and a few of the infantry and recon troops as well. The tall and black Terrance "Vigilante" Morgan was in the lead, and he sat down at the main table and put his legs up on it and crossed his feet, snapping his fingers for service. He was clearly a solid athlete, his tank top showing his well-muscled physique. His dark eyes passed us over briefly and he may have scowled a bit. Right behind him was the almost-as-tall Kellie Orion, whose callsign I couldn't recall. She was a beautiful blonde bombshell and it was obvious why the five infantryman were following her. As we watched their entrance I caught her call out.
"Who's buying for me today?" she called out. The grunts shamelessly fell over one another trying to gain her favor. She seemed to love the attention. Career flirt. I made a mental note to avoid her and hoped that she and Sara weren't good friends. I turned from the ruckus and looked back at my mechwarriors. The guys were watching Kellie and Solaria was giving them a disgusted look because of it. She had snuck the bottle from me while I looked away and refilled her glass.
"Okay Solaria, you've had half that bottle already, come on pass it over. We're on call remember?" I teased.
"Oh, don't worry about me. I can probably walk a straighter line than those two right now," she quipped as she pointed at the guys and capped the bottle. We were pretty much done with the food and drink, save the remnants of the one bottle, which I started to pocket. Just then Terrance clapped me on the shoulder from behind.
"Alright Vance, you gave 'em hell today. Nice work with that Atlas."
He sat down next to me, drink in hand. I uncapped my bottle and motioned if he wanted some and he nodded so I topped his drink off. Kellie had walked over as well and flashed a disarming smile as she joined him.
"And that was soooo sweet of you to take Sara up to the medical room. You're a real romantic," she cooed. Aw hell. I expected Solaria to giggle and join in on the teasing, but instead crossed her arms and looked fiercely at Kellie. I replaced the bottle and replied.
"Thanks. Enjoy the drink," I said as I sought to deflect the conversation. "I'm lucky to have a good team and a good unit."
"You're too humble. Come on, let's play some cards. We've all got cash to spare after that op," prodded Terrance. His eyes flashed a predatory glance over us. He seemed to revel in competition. Solaria spoke up first.
"Alright, I'm in." Cadence and Zanshin declined the offer.
"I'm gonna get to work on my mech," said Cadence as he pushed his chair back and picked up his things.
"And I'm too drunk," rumbled Zanshin. We all laughed since there was no way the behemoth could be, considering his size and the portions of food he had eaten, which was easily half of what had been on the tray.
"But I would be up for some arm-wrestling," he continued and grinned. No one responded and more than a few raised their eyebrows as if to say: 'you have got to be kidding me'. I was not a good card player and was about to opt out when the intercom sounded.
"All personnel prepare for departure. Leftenant Strovski report to the bridge," said the even voice of Captain Siampa.
"I guess that's my answer for you Terrance, have a good game." I stood up and felt a little dizzy, but made my way out with Zanshin and Cadence, who headed for the mech bay as I ascended the lift to the bridge.
The doors slid open and I stepped onto the bridge. Captain Siampa was in the command chair with the Colonel standing nearby. Three bridge crewmembers were working the console panels and Alvaria was on the comm.
"Roger that Dreadnaught, you are clear for launch. Peregine what is your fuel situation… alright we will rendezvous in seven minutes at navpoint zeta and you can perform an inflight docking then," I caught her say. I was wondering how Dreadnaught could launch with us on the ground, but I strode up to the officers and waited silently.
"Ah, Leftenant. Good. I have something here for you." With that the Colonel drew a small envelope from his side pocket and handed it to me. He saw my puzzled reaction and explained.
"Bonus pay for you and your lance for the kills. We pay bonus for each kill and assist. Split it up as you deem fit. There's also something else in there for you." I drew out a bronze star medallion, small and compact.
"For recovering Sarasvati and probably saving her life I am giving you the Sarna star. We hope you stick with our unit past this mission since your skills and courage are exemplary," said the Colonel in a regal tone.
"Thank you sir," I stammered. The extra pay was unexpected, and quite generous. 185,000 in total. Quite a sizeable bonus. I honestly didn't care much about the medal, since, hey, I'm a mercenary, but it seemed to matter to the Colonel, so I treated the honor seriously.
As I looked over the envelope and cash a platoon leader came up and spoke with the Colonel, and although I couldn't hear the whispered conversation, I got the idea that it was regarding the prisoners we had taken and the results of some questioning. Both the Atlas pilot and the second Uziel pilot had been captured, poor saps. It seemed like the infantryman was asking for permission to use slightly more persuasive methods of extracting information. The hairs rose on the back of my neck.
I was soon dismissed and descended the lift with the infantryman, just behind the man, but lost in thought. I fiddled absent mindedly with my medipack as I thought about the progress of my mission. After a brief stop in my quarters, I made my way down the corridor to the medical wing to see how Sara was doing. As I passed the brig I heard a noise and suddenly got a feeling, my adrenaline rising and pulse racing. My medipack registered my alert state and injected me as I stopped. I turned abruptly on my heel and kicked the door open…
The infantryman was there, as were the two pilots, and the situation was all wrong. Just as they turned to face me, I drew my sidearms from my tactical jacket's concealed pouches, flicking off the safeties with practiced ease, and sighted in my targets. Time seemed to drag as the one gun in the room not in my control tracked towards me as I threw myself backwards and pulled the triggers.
Had there been a slow motion camera in the room, it would have seemed that the shots all went off simultaneously, except the last one, the reports sounding like one automatic burst. Blood sprayed into the air and onto the walls as my world suddenly went white, a deafening ringing in my ears. I lay there on my back, and painfully forced myself to roll onto my stomach, pulling myself towards the table. Where were my guns? I couldn't think straight as I crawled to the chair. I felt a shell casing under my right hand and clenched it tightly, feeling the heat of it burn my hand, but not caring.
The staccato roar of the weapons drew the attention of all onboard the ship and within seconds a pair of armed guards had burst into the room. I was staggering to my feet when they ran through the open door and leveled their weapons at me. I resignedly slumped in the chair I was using to draw myself up and waited. In no time the Colonel and Alvaria came through the door, breathing heavily.
"What the frag is going on in here Vance!" I tried to speak, but found I couldn't… so I motioned with my left hand that I wasn't breathing well.
"Heard… a noise… came in… shot them…" I motioned at the pilots on the floor. Both had neat holes in their temple, and the floor was steadily pooling their blood under me. The infantryman was leaning back in his chair with his throat completely shot out, eyes staring blankly, his vest soaked in blood. One gun was in the corner of the room on the floor, and both of mine were at the feet of the first guard, who stooped to pick them up.
"Must've been a ricochet…" I gasped, as I pointed at the infantryman. At this point the Colonel and Alvaria realized that I too had been shot. The slug was embedded into my flak vest, but hadn't broken the skin.
"Rostov, get Vance to the medical wing and get him looked at. Now you know why you don't fire projectile weapons on a starship Leftenant," chided Alvaria.
I shrugged, as if to say do or die, but couldn't make the words come out. The second guard, Rostov, came over to help me to the medical wing and I found I could walk pretty much unaided, but was glad for the help anyway.
Turned out that the round had cracked two ribs, although there was no other damage. As I lay there in the medical wing I just tried to stay conscious. The doctor stripped off my vest and shirt, and then the pain really hit me. He hooked up an IV and tranquilizer as he inspected the wound. The pain faded and the world dimmed.
I still clenched the casing tightly in my hand, and placed it in my pocket. When the doctor left the room finally I strained to reach my tactical jacket. I finally gave up and went to sleep regretting that I wasn't sitting in Sara's room watching her sleep instead of falling unconscious myself.
I awoke some time later. I had slept through the liftoff and probably landing too, which means I had been out cold for quite some time. I shook my head and blinked my eyes to get oriented. The room was darker, with only some smaller lights on the counter still on. I reached over to my jacket, again straining for a cigarette, and finally got to them. I noticed my pistols were there with my jacket and shirt now as well. Now where the hell is my lighter… as I felt my pockets.
I jumped as a hand reached out and a flame flicked to life just to my other side.
"Whoa. You scared me." I managed to stammer.
"You scared me too. Can you refrain from shooting people next door to me in the future?" It was Sara's voice. She was awake!
"Sara! How are you feeling!" I asked excitedly, then made myself calm down and lit my cigarette on the flame.
"I feel like slag. My throat scratches, my shoulder aches, it hurts to talk, and I hate my new haircut. You?"
"About the same."
She laughed lightly, then coughed hard and cleared her throat, turning on the bedside light. She was seated in the chair to my side, one leg tucked under her body. Wearing a white tank top and black pants, her deep shoulder wound was clearly seen, the bandage starting on her deltoid and working it's way up to the base of the back of her neck. I forced myself to look away from the line of her shoulders and met her eyes. She looked out of the sides of her eyes at her hair, shrugging slightly and rolling her eyes. Her hair was cut very short, compared to the long spirals she had when I had first seen her, no higher than shoulder level, with a flip at the bottom. I smirked at her expression.
"You're right, that is a bad haircut," I teased. She dropped her jaw in shock as her eyes widened, but suddenly realized I was joking and gave a tight-lipped smile.
"You'll have to reprimand your mechwarrior for poor performance then. I recommend a demotion in rank and reassigning her mech to me," she joked back.
"Solaria cut it?" I asked. She nodded and it made sense then. How else would the little street urchin be able to keep her own hair in that eccentric spiked style? She definitely had her own way of doing things, a flair that stuck out in a crowd.
"She's pretty good really," she said, as she ran her hands through the sides of it. "She wanted it shorter of course, and probably would've tattooed and pierced me if I'd have let her. I'm pretty stubborn though. Listen, Vance, I never got a chance to thank you for saving my life out there. Damn stupid of me to try taking on that Atlas. I'm lucky I got off as easy as I did." She broke off quietly and looked at the floor. My heart started beating a little faster. I couldn't respond. No woman should be able to do this to me. But she had. Was it the vulnerability? The circumstances? I couldn't pin it down. I took a drag and refocused on the confrontation.
"Someone had to take it on, and a Phoenix Hawk can never fight an Atlas toe-to-toe. You did the right thing with the unorthodox attack, and I saw the validity of the strategy and finished where you started. And even I needed help from Zanshin." It was true. I really admired her fighting style and taking on the Atlas full-bore with the death-from-above attack. It was gutsy, but also effective. She sensed the genuineness of the compliment and nodded.
"As a soldier, it was a victory. As a mercenary though, it was a defeat, because now I have no mech." The anger was evident in her voice. I sensed that the anger was partially directed at me. "Better to be dead than to be dispossessed," she spat out. She stood up with a fire in her eyes and the muscles of her neck and shoulders were tense, probably both with emotion and physical pain from her wound.
"You're more than your mech, Sara. The Colonel will look out for you. Trust me, he's not going to cut you from the unit for losing your mech. You'll be alright." At this she softened a little and the anger faded.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. With my luck though I'll probably get a Stinger. Well, I better get down to the bay and see what is left of my Hawk. Maybe I can help them work on it. I'll see you in the briefing room." She strode to the door and exited abruptly.
I swung my feet over the side of the bed and sat up with my head in my hands for a while. My side ached, but I reached over and grabbed my shirt and pulled it on. I grabbed one of my pistols, jacked out the clip and popped out the bullets, one by one. I counted and replaced them and compared them to the casing in my pocket. Identical. I returned the casing to the pocket and then did the same with the other gun, counting the bullets. Exactly as many as I expected. I pulled two fresh clips from my tac-jacket and loaded them into the guns and holstered them, then pulled out a handful of spare bullets and topped off the two other clips. Now no one would know how many shots I had really fired. I had just put them back in my jacket and lit another cigarette when a creak at the door announced an arrival.
"Good, he's up Colonel." In came a guard and the Colonel. It was a different guard than the one who had helped me earlier. The Colonel sat down at the chair and the guard went outside.
"Vance, how are you feeling?" he asked.
"I'm feeling great actually. Good thing I had my flak vest on."
"So we've mostly guessed at what happened, since we found two slugs in the wall and one in you, and three casings on the floor but why don't you tell me how it all happened?"
As I lie there, I explained what had happened, how the noise had alerted me, so I entered and saw the Atlas pilot had the pistol, so I shot him and his comrade and the ricochet had hit the infantryman.
He accepted my explanation and moved on to what had happened in the meantime. I'd been out for 8 hours straight, and we'd landed in the highlands on Eaton's large arctic continent. Dry but mild, it was mostly uninhabited save a scattering of cities near the small ocean the planet had. Eaton was really one large continent, with one large ocean covering around 20% of it's planetary surface. It didn't quite separate the arctic continent, but terrestrial colonists found it hard to give up old ways of looking at things and thus, the misnomer persisted to this day. Reconnaissance reports showed a clear scope and we were now erecting a temporary base to protect the royals before going on some extended strike missions.
"So get some more rest. You'll deploy in 10 hours, so we have a briefing in 9. Once you do, it'll be several days before you return and get a restful night's sleep again. Understood?"
I nodded and watched him leave the room. Three cigarettes later, I fell asleep.